Cults

In an issue of CT magazine, Carrie Sheffield shares how politics had become an idol to her and how she discovered a deeper source of purpose and meaning in Christ.

Carrie Sheffield was raised in extreme religious trauma in an offshoot Mormon cult. Her father believed that he was a Mormon prophet and was eventually excommunicated by the LDS church for heresy. She grew up with seven siblings in various motor homes, tents, houses, and sheds. Carrie attended 17 different public schools and when she took the ACT test, the family lived in a shed with no running water in the Ozarks.

All the children inherited trauma from their tumultuous family life. Two of her siblings have schizophrenia, including one brother who tried to rape her. Carrie has been hospitalized nine times for depression, fibromyalgia, suicidal ideation, and PTSD.

When she left home to attend Brigham Young University, her dad declared that she was satanic and therefore disowned her. As a student, she felt disillusioned by a growing list of unanswered questions about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the prospect of polygamy in the afterlife. After receiving her journalism degree, she stopped practicing Mormonism, formally renouncing it in 2010. For years she assumed she would never return to belief in God or organized religion. She writes:

To fill the void, I threw myself into work, schooling, dating, friends, and travel as ultimate sources of meaning. I worked as an analyst for major Wall Street firms, earning unthinkable sums for a girl from a motor home. I launched a career in political journalism at outlets like Politico, The Hill, and The Washington Times.

But ultimately her career goals left her unfilled. It was during the 2016 election that she felt an existential crisis. She realized that when she’d lost faith in God, she had allowed politics to become a substitute religion. She had built her career toward working on a Republican campaign or in the White House. She had appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business, and other networks, even sparring on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. She says:

During this crisis of meaning, I felt distraught and adrift. So, I turned to church, first to Redeemer Presbyterian, founded by the late Tim Keller, and later to Saint Thomas Episcopal. It was during a service that I encountered Scripture’s answer to career and political idolatry in passages like Mark 8:36–37, which asks, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” Studying Christianity felt like uncovering buried treasure discarded by intellectuals who had discounted its scientific and philosophical heft.

I joined the Episcopal church, having been influenced by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, the preacher from the royal wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. My baptism day—December 3, 2017—was the happiest of my life. A group of about 30 family and friends watched me vow to “serve Christ in all persons, loving my neighbor as myself” and “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.”

More than six years since my baptism, I enjoy a healthier relationship to politics. I still have strong convictions, which I don’t hesitate to share in columns, speeches, or TV appearances, but I know God is far bigger than any puny manmade system. As I returned to a walk with God, I felt enveloped with a sense of peace that surpassed understanding.

Editor’s Note: Carrie Sheffield is a policy analyst in Washington, DC. She has published in The Wall Street Journal, TIME, USA Today, CNN Opinion, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNBC, National Review, Newsweek, HuffPost, and Daily Caller . She has appeared as a live broadcast guest on media networks including Fox News, Newsmax TV, Fox Business Network, MSNBC, CNN, PBS, and BBC. Carrie provided analysis for Fox News’ first 2016 GOP presidential primary debate.

Anna LeBaron grew up in a violent, polygamist cult—a radical off-shoot of the modern-day Mormon church. The leader was her father, Ervil LaBaron, and he demanded total allegiance. He commanded followers to carry out mob-style hits on those who opposed him or fled his cult. Media outlets nicknamed him “the Mormon [Charles] Manson” for the atrocities he committed, and authorities in multiple states (and Mexico) issued arrest warrants for him.

Anna and her family moved often, living in constant fear of getting caught. The FBI and Mexican police would raid their home, looking for her father and the others who had carried out his orders. Anna writes:

We experienced poverty of mind, spirit, and body. One man cannot support 13 wives and over 50 children. Everyone, even young children, worked long hours in grueling conditions to ensure we didn’t starve. Even so, we regularly scavenged—or stole—to meet basic food and clothing needs. We were never allowed to make friends with anyone outside the cult. Eventually my father was taken into custody by the FBI agents, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in a Utah prison.

Even though I grew up in a religious group that claimed to believe the Bible, I had no idea who Jesus was. When anyone in our tight-knit community spoke the name of Jesus or mentioned Christianity, they did so with contempt and derision. But God had his eye on me even then.

My older brother Ed, who lived in Houston, wanted a better life for us. After my father’s imprisonment he showed up in Denver with a U-Haul truck. After about a year the phone rang and the caller reported that my father had been found dead in his prison cell. I was shocked, but I found it difficult to mourn as a normal child would.

After hearing the news, her mother decided to move back to Denver and the chaos of the cult. Anna called Lillian, an older sister who had married and had begun distancing herself from the cult. She told her, “Start walking.” Anna walked out of the house with just the clothes on her back. Her sister hid Anna in a hotel for three days while her mother looked for her that night. When she couldn’t find her, she drove her siblings back to Denver.

I (Anna) moved in with Lillian, her husband, Mark, and their six children. They enrolled me in a Christian school. Several students there showed me love and acceptance quite different from anything I’d ever experienced. I could tell they had something inside them that I was missing and desperately needed. I learned about the Good News of God’s love for me. I learned how Jesus, God’s Son, was sent to earth to die on the cross for my sin. I learned that Jesus lived, was crucified, and was raised from the dead.

My sister allowed me to go on a retreat with the church youth group. The youth pastor gave me the opportunity to ask Jesus to come into my life and change me. That night, God took the broken heart of a 13-year-old girl in his hands, and since then he has been gradually restoring the wholeness that my chaotic childhood smashed to pieces.

My faith has carried me through the dark valleys and has helped me persevere through intense fear, tragedy, and multiple murders of people I love. As a child, I knew myself only as the polygamist’s daughter. But when I came to truly know God as my father, he shattered the evil grip my earthly father had on my life. I began to find my identity as a daughter of God and learned to experience true freedom in and through Jesus Christ alone.

American evangelicals’ grasp on theology is slipping, and more than half affirmed heretical views of God in the 2022 State of Theology survey, released by Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research.

Overall, adults in the U.S. are moving away from orthodox understandings of God and his Word year after year. More than half of the country (53%) now believes Scripture “is not literally true,” up from 41 percent when the biannual survey began in 2014.

Researchers called the rejection of the divine authorship of the Bible the “clearest and most consistent trend” over the eight years of data. Researchers wrote, “This view makes it easy for individuals to accept biblical teaching that they resonate with while simultaneously rejecting any biblical teaching that is out of step with their own personal views or broader cultural values.”

Here are five of the most common mistaken beliefs held by evangelicals:

1. Jesus isn’t the only way to God. 56 percent of evangelical respondents affirmed that “God accepts the worship of all religions.” This answer indicates a bent toward universalism—believing there are ways to bypass Jesus in our approach to and acceptance by God.

2. Jesus was created by God. 73 percent agreed with the statement that “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.” This is a form of Arianism, a popular heresy that arose in the early fourth century.

3. Jesus is not God. 43 percent affirmed that “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God,” which is another form of Arian heresy.

4. The Holy Spirit is not a personal being. 60 percent of the evangelical survey respondents believe that “The Holy Spirit is a force but is not a personal being.”

5. Humans aren’t sinful by nature. 57 percent also agreed to the statement that “Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.” In other words, humans might be capable of committing individual sins, but we do not have sinful natures. This denies the doctrine of original sin.

In an issue of CT magazine, Lisa Brockman shares her testimony of leaving the Mormon Church and became a born-again Christian:

As a sixth-generation Mormon girl, I believed that the Mormon Church was the one true church of God. I believed Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. By age six, I was convinced that having a temple marriage and faithfully obeying Mormon laws would qualify me to spend eternity in the highest heaven—the Celestial Kingdom. There, I would exalt into godhood and bear spirit children. This was my greatest dream.

But there were temptations to resist. Throughout high school, Mormon friends of mine began drifting into the world of partying. Alcohol seemed to release them from the striving and shame that comes with performance-based love. For three years I resisted, feeling like a pressure cooker of unworthiness waiting to explode. As a senior, I gave up resisting, I jumped into the party world with the same passion I brought to the rest of my life, funneling beer without restraint.

Yet even as I felt liberated from Mormon legalism, I didn’t waver from believing that the Mormon church was God’s true church. During my freshman year at the University of Utah, I met Gary. Gary told me he was a born-again Christian—I’d never heard of one. For the first month of our relationship we avoided the subject. Then, on a wintry December day, Gary cracked open the door of this conversation.

Gary asked, “How do you know Mormonism is true?” I had never heard this question before. He continued, “Have you looked into the historicity of Mormonism? How do you know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God? How do you know the Book of Mormon is God’s Word?” More questions that had never crossed my mind. Within minutes, my unease turned into terror. What had felt like a firm foundation was dissolving into quicksand.

Nevertheless, our affection for each other was growing, and we knew this lingering division needed to be addressed. So we agreed to study the Bible together. It only took one Bible study to send me into a tailspin. I was shocked to find several crucial disparities between biblical and Mormon teachings. For five months I battled with Gary and the Bible, defending Mormonism with passion. But my fortress began to crumble as I compared the historical authenticity of Mormonism and Joseph Smith with that of the Bible.

This was devastating and infuriating. At the same time, it opened my mind to the biblical view of my nature—sinful, not divine. It also opened my mind to better understand God’s nature—three persons in one God, the Father being Spirit instead of flesh and bones. The Mormon God was a man who worked his way into godhood. The biblical God had always been God, unchanging. I struggled to wrap my mind around this.

I saw, too, that God was inviting me to walk into his kingdom through trust in Jesus. Covered in Christ’s righteousness, I would always be worthy of the Father’s delight and presence. But rejecting the faith of my forebears and risking the wrath of my family terrified me. I wanted further assurance that I was right to take this plunge.

After five more months of research, I was still wrestling with the idea of a Trinitarian God. One day, as I sat in bed conflicted, God drew near to me in a vision. I saw a sea of people around Jesus, who sat on a throne. They bowed before him, singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. Who was, and is, and is to come.” As they worshiped, I fell to my face and wept. I received Jesus into my heart and walked into his kingdom. I was free of the shame that had suffocated me for 18 years.

On my 21st birthday, after consuming large quantities of alcohol, I spent the night fending off drunk guys who wanted to take me home. I steadied a friend’s forehead as she vomited into the toilet of a urine-soaked bathroom. I craved a different kind of life.

That same December night, I returned home and fell face-down before God. With fists clenched and tears streaming, I offered each addiction to him, inviting him to have his way in my heart, my mind, and my body. I asked him to free me to live fully surrendered to Jesus, the One who gives life.

When I awoke the next morning, I felt born again, as if God had performed a total heart and mind transplant. I was released from my addictions, and peace filled my entire being. The Mormon girl inside me breathed a sigh of relief. Set free from the burden of proving myself worthy, I rested in the arms of the One who had loved me enough to cover me with worthiness all his own.

Editor’s Note: Lisa Brockman is currently a staff member of Cru.

Katherine Beim-Esche tells a moving story of meeting the living God after escaping the cult of Christian Science:

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the world reeled in shock and disbelief. I did too—not only at the events themselves but also at the response I saw within my church. Raised a fourth-generation Christian Scientist, I lived within a Christian Science cocoon. In many ways, I acted like a Christian, reading my Bible every day, praying the Lord’s Prayer, and attending church twice a week.

Then everything exploded. Literally. The day after 9/11, hoping for comfort, I sought out the Wednesday night meeting at my Christian Science church. But what I heard left me feeling profoundly uneasy. Some congregants boldly declared that a tragedy like this never could have occurred in God’s perfect world. Others … subtly implied that the victims were to blame. How, I wondered, could they be so cavalier about the suffering we had witnessed? Little did I know that this terrible day would launch me on a journey to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

Not to be confused with Scientology, Christian Science was founded by Mary Baker Eddy in the late 1800s. Its core teaching is influenced by gnostic, pantheistic, and metaphysical beliefs that portray sin, sickness, and death as illusions.

After 9/11, I could no longer deny the reality of evil. (Then) … by God’s providence, I overheard a coffee-shop conversation on faith. Something in my heart stirred. One of the men in that discussion invited me to his church and gave me a copy of Francis Schaeffer’s book The God Who Is There. Schaeffer said that the spiritual and physical world originated with a Creator God. I didn’t totally understand this, but it filled me with deep hope and a desire to learn more.

I visited Grace and Peace Fellowship, where I came face to face with the living God. In my Christian Science church, sin was never mentioned, but here it was freely confessed. I wept as I heard, for the first time, of God’s deep, sacrificial love for me. I was convicted of my sin and selfishness.

When I met with pastor Aaron Turner and he told me I was a sinner, I actually thanked him. After a lifetime of denying and repressing my very humanity, I was relieved to finally admit my brokenness. Then I met Jesus. Pastor Aaron introduced me to the Jesus of Scripture, who came to earth, took on flesh, and died and rose again to redeem his people and restore all creation. Praise God for untangling my heart and mind from the delusion of self-salvation—and for rescuing me into new life with Christ and his church.

The NXIVM cult (pronounced Nex-ee-um), chronicled in HBO’s current docuseries The Vow, is a cult that targeted celebrities so they could recruit other celebrity friends. Their fame earned the cult more credibility and attracted new members. Actors and directors from major Hollywood productions were cleverly duped by its founder, Keith Raniere, who was recently sentenced to 120 years in prison.

Cult experts who have worked with ex-members explain the lure for famous, successful people:

Many people in that line of work think, OK, I had success with this series, and I have money, and I have name recognition. But I don't feel that I have a deeper sense of meaning. I've accomplished many of the things I hoped for regarding my career in entertainment, but what about really making a difference in the world? And Keith Raniere was selling that. He was telling people, ‘OK, you made movies. You were successful in television. But what about changing the world? What about really having an impact, not just through entertainment, but in a meaningful way?’

With the help of friends, family and cult experts, many celebrities realized that it was a destructive, abusive cult. They came to regret how they had hurt so many. One cult expert reported:

They feel terrible. When they start understanding how it works, the psychological manipulation part, they realize that it was self-perpetuating: You get hooked in, and the next thing you do is start bringing other people in and using the same manipulative techniques. And when you realize that's what's taken place, it's horrible to realize that you've messed up so many people's lives. A lot of people that I know that were in the upper echelon of it are doing everything they can to help those people they brought in.

Editor’s Note: As of 12/20/20 the NXIVM website has been taken down, and the leaders are in jail, but some followers have reorganized under different names.

Notorious cult leader Charles Manson was responsible for the brutal deaths of nine people in the summer of 1969. The murders were so gruesome and sensational that Manson has been an obsession for many people even after his death.

This summer (2019) a Quentin Tarantino movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is being released. It is based partially on Manson’s crimes and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Kurt Russell, and Al Pacino. Film historian Peter Biskind writes about Manson’s appeal in an issue of Esquire.

Some examples of our fascination with Charles Manson and evil:

-At least 50 books have been written about Manson.

-Helter Skelter, the book on his investigation and trial, has sold over seven million copies. It is the “best-selling true-crime book of all time.”

-One opera entitled The Manson Family was produced.

-Eleven feature films, documentaries, and TV series focus entirely on him or he is a large part of the subject covered.

-According to the recent article in Esquire: “In addition to comic books and multiple websites devoted to him …, jewelry, coffee mugs, and T-shirts displaying his image sell on eBay, Etsy, and Amazon. ... You can download his singing and talking ringtones to your cell phone—for free.”

Biskind ends his article by delving into the essence of this fascination:

One thing Charlie liked to say was “Look straight at me and you see yourself.” Maybe one answer to the riddle of Manson and his girls is that they remind us of the ultimate unknowability of other people, even the seemingly unremarkable ones. Theirs is the story of Little Red Riding Hood in reverse: The smiling young girl at the door selling Girl Scout cookies is herself the Big Bad Wolf, and may be hiding a dagger under her cloak.

Is our world becoming overwhelming secular? Not exactly, says researcher Rodney Stark. In his book The Triumph of Faith, Stark argues that our world is still very open to spirituality, including traditional Christianity and other beliefs. Stark writes:

The world is more religious than it has ever been. Around the globe, four out of every five people claim to belong to an organized faith, and many of the rest say they attend worship services. In Latin America, Pentecostal Protestant churches have converted tens of millions, and Catholics are going to Mass in unprecedented numbers. There are more churchgoing Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else on earth, and China may soon become home of the most Christians. Meanwhile, although not growing as rapidly as Christianity, Islam enjoys far higher levels of member commitment than it has for many centuries, and the same is true for Hinduism. In fact, of all the great world religions, only Buddhism may not be growing. Furthermore, in every nook and cranny left by organized faiths, all manner of unconventional and unchurched supernaturalisms are booming: there are more occult healers than medical doctors in Russia; 38 percent of the French believe in astrology; 35 percent of the Swiss agree that "some fortune tellers really can foresee the future," and nearly everyone in Japan is careful to have a new car blessed by a Shinto priest.

In his book Dreamland, journalist Sam Quinones points to one paragraph of false information that helped pave the way for the surge in addicts to the highly addictive opiate OxyContin. Before 1980, the rule for prescribing narcotic painkillers was as little as possible for as short a time as possible. Doctors were taught that the risk of addiction was simply too high. As Mr. Quinones recounts, this thinking changed when Dr. Hershel Jick and a colleague submitted a one-paragraph letter to the New England Journal of Medicine noting that, according to their data, of 12,000 patients treated with opiates in a Boston hospital before 1979, "only four had grown addicted."

But Quinones writes, "There were no data about how often, how long, or at what dose these patients were given opiates. The paragraph simply cited the numbers and made no claim beyond that."

Cited and recited, Dr. Jick's letter bolstered a growing push within medicine to treat pain more aggressively. By the time the pharmaceutical company Purdue Frederick introduced a time-release painkiller called OxyContin in 1996, the accepted wisdom was that opiates were nearly non-addictive. Purdue "set about promoting OxyContin as virtually risk-free and a solution to the problems patients presented doctors with every day," Doctors—often primary-care physicians not specially trained in pain management—duly began to prescribe the drug for patients in chronic pain.

The results have been disastrous. "Oxy prescriptions for chronic pain rose from 670,000 in 1997 to 6.2 million in 2002," writes Mr. Quinones. "While still prescribed for cancer pain, OxyContin was now also offered for the sorts of aches for which one might have previously taken an aspirin." As a result, the rates of opiate addiction in big and small cities across America have soared.

When do you not listen to the African wildlife expert? When he tells you to stand closer to a wild rhino.

That's what happened to a 24-year-old woman from South Africa. She was staying at the Aloe Ridge Hotel and Nature Reserve, about 25 miles from Johannesburg. The reserve advertises that it gives its guests "the ideal opportunity to game view," with rhinos listed among the animals "sighted at close range," along with hippos, Cape buffaloes and giraffes. Unfortunately, Chantal Beyer, one of the guests at the reserve, got a little too close.

Game park owner Alex Richter had reportedly told a group of visitors it was safe to get out of the safari vehicle to take photos, and he even used food to coax the rhinos closer.

A relative of Ms. Beyer told reporters, "There were quite a few young people on the vehicle and they probably felt they could trust Richter, who was an adult."

As the game park owner was snapping pictures, he advised Chantal to "stand just a little bit closer" seconds before the attack. Photos show Beyer and her husband only feet away from two rhinos.

The paper said that just after the photo was snapped, the rhino attacked, and its horn penetrated Ms. Beyers' chest from behind, resulting in a collapsed lung and broken ribs. The Aloe Ridge Hotel and Nature Reserve, where the incident took place, declined to comment.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Sin, Temptation—Getting too close to sin may lead to unintended and painful consequences. (2) Advice, Counsel, False Doctrine—Use discernment when given advice. Even alleged "experts" can give foolish advice.

Pastor Mike Breaux tells the following story of when his daughter Jodie answered God's call to go into missions work:

During her junior year of high school, Jodie struggled to find a faith of her own. She wanted to know in her heart that all of what she'd been taught to believe was true and that Jesus Christ was real. Honestly, she was headed down a dark road. But God pursued her down that road. She eventually found a faith of her own, and when she graduated from high school, she said, "I don't think God wants me to go to college right now. I want to take a year to go to Haiti, and I want to serve people in a medical mission down there."

I said, "Are you sure you want to do this? Jodie, it's 3,000 miles away from home. It's AIDS-infested and the poorest country in the western hemisphere. And do you know it's controlled by the voodoo religion?"

"I know all that," she said. "But I feel like God wants me to go and help those people."

I said, "Okay. If that's what you want to do, we'll make it happen."

One of the hardest days of my life was putting my little girl on an airplane and watching it lift off, not knowing whether I'd ever communicate with her again.

One night I got an e-mail from Jodie. She wrote: "Dad, tonight has been the most remarkable night of my life. I got called out to this hut to deliver a baby. Dad, I've only delivered one, and that was with somebody. I'd never done this by myself, but I was the only one around. They called me, and I get to this hut, and there's this naked, screaming lady on the dirt floor. I got a flashlight, and I'm thinking, Here I am, 18-years-old, and I'm in a hut in a third-world country with a naked, screaming, pregnant lady. I have a flashlight, and I don't know what I'm doing—but I'm here. To make matters worse, this lady from the voodoo religion walked into the hut, dressed in her red and blue voodoo garb, and began to chant some voodoo incantation in Creole. She put some kind of oil on the lady's head, and when she started to walk away from me and the woman, she stopped at the woman's belly, put some other kind of saave there, and walked the opposite direction—all while chanting this Creole spell. I didn't know what to do. She stood at the head of this woman and stared a hole through me. When I was getting ready to deliver this baby, I just looked back at her, and I started singing. I knew she didn't understand English, but I just started singing: 'Our God is an awesome God, he reigns from heaven above, with wisdom, power, and love, our God is an awesome God.'"

Jodie said that the voodoo lady became completely unglued. She grabbed all of her stuff and ran out of the hut. Jodie wrote, "That night I knew that that baby was going to be born with the blessing of God and not the curse of Satan."

As I read Jodie's e-mail, my fatherly side thought, You get on a plane tomorrow! What are you doing in a hut with a voodoo woman in the first place? But then my heart beat so fast for her as her brother in Christ. I thought, Way to go, Jodie! Way to make a difference with your life! Way to stop floating around accidental-like! Way to put your life in the hands of the destiny-maker! Way to make a splash! Who knows who that little baby she delivered that night is going to grow up to touch and who that person is going to touch—all because of one courageous girl who said, "Okay, God, I want to put my life in your hands; I want to make a difference."

In Mark 8:35 Jesus said: If you insist on saving your life—[if you insist on the comfort of playing it safe]—you're going to lose your opportunity for life! Only those who give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it really means to really, really live.

In 2000, an Illinois scientist named William Walsh studied strands of hair from the body of famous classical composer Ludwig Van Beethoven. By studying those strands of hair, Dr. Walsh discovered that Beethoven's body had 100 times the normal amount of lead. He concluded that Beethoven's untimely death at the age of 57 was due to lead poisoning.

What's interesting is that Beethoven's lead poisoning can be traced to the mineral spa that he went to in order to relax. Think about that: the very thing he thought was bringing him relief and relaxation was actually slowly poisoning him to death.

That's what spiritual poison is like, that as people engage in practices and embrace ideas that are spiritually poisonous, they think it is making them more spiritual. But in reality, it's gradually killing them spiritually.

Kathy was one of 13 children raised by a common father and three mothers in a polygamist community in Utah. [The community was a part of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a sect that split from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 1890's.]Growing up, she was burdened by the unrealistic expectations of the cult: "We were constantly told to 'keep sweet,' and that 'perfect obedience produces perfect faith.' Behind these sugary slogans lay the impossible duty of living in complete obedience to the Prophet."

This prophet was a man named Leroy Johnson, and Mormon belief stated that he was the earthly leader of the community and mediator between God and man. "We called him Uncle Roy," says Kathy. "He was a feeble old man who prophesied that he would never die—that he'd become young again and be lifted up to heaven. If I kept sweet, I'd be taken with him. I looked forward to that glorious day with hope and fear."

But that day never came. Instead, Johnson passed away at the age of 93, and was succeeded by a new Prophet. These events shattered Kathy's faith in the Mormon way of life. In an act of rebellion, she ran away with a young man named Matt at the age of 18. The two were married and moved to California, but Kathy found that physical distance was not enough to separate her from her former life.

"I was ashamed I grew up in polygamy," she says. "I worried people would find out about my past, so I over-indulged in drinking, smoking, and drugs in an attempt to appear worldly. My thoughts mocked me. You're an idiot for leaving! You didn't stay sweet and obey the Prophet! You're going to hell! I sought therapy, but couldn't express my feelings. I wanted desperately to believe in God, yet what had he ever done for me? I tried to read the Book of Mormon, but I didn't believe it anymore."

After two years of marriage, Kathy and Matt divorced. Years later, she met a man named Brian at work. Brian was a Christian and stood out in Kathy's circle of friends. What happened next is a miracle of grace:

We began attending church, and Brian and I spent more time together. He had a purpose to his life, a steadiness I wanted. When I told him all about my past, he shared how Mormonism differed from the truth of the Bible. We began praying together. God seemed real and different than I'd ever expected.

One day, Brian's mother talked about a baptism. Confused, I asked many questions: What did a person need to do to be baptized? Did he say a vow or go through a ceremony? How much did it cost? She assured me baptism was free, that it was an outward statement of an inward commitment to Christ. I admitted I wasn't sure I'd made that commitment. How did I get this faith? Did you have to keep sweet and be perfectly obedient? She explained good deeds don't save us. Mormonism teaches you must work to earn your way to heaven. The Bible teaches that trusting in Christ's finished work on the cross saves us.

I was amazed at the simplicity of the gospel message. I cried as I realized I could come to Christ just as I was. He didn't require perfection. Sitting there talking with Brian's mom, I prayed to receive Jesus as my Savior. Several weeks later, following counseling sessions with the pastor to make sure I fully understood, I was baptized.

By God's grace, I am now a woman of faith.

A new religion invented by a Massachusetts psychologist has been gaining popularity over recent years. Called "Yoism," this system of beliefs is based on the "open source" principle—where the general public becomes a combined, creative authority and source of truth. One example of the "open source" phenomenon is the successful online encyclopedia known as Wikipedia.

Yoism operates and evolves over the Internet, and has numerous contributors. It shuns traditional religious authorities and eschews divine inspiration in favor of the wisdom of man. Bob Dylan, Albert Einstein, and Sigmund Freud are among its most revered saints.

Dan Kriegman, who founded Yoism in 1994, did so because he wanted to make religion open to change and responsive to the wisdom of people everywhere. "I don't think anyone has ever complained about something that didn't lead to some revision or clarification in the Book of Yo," said Kriegman. He added: "Every aware, conscious, sentient spirit is divine and has direct access to truth…. Open source embodies that. There is no authority."

Editor’s Note: According to Google’s Bard “There are currently an estimated 10,000 Youists worldwide, with the majority of them living in the United States.” (Accessed 8/2023)